SAP R/3 is perhaps the
best known ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system on the market.
Originally dating back to the 1970s, it took the then-controversial
approach of combining various business functions into one application
and database.

SAP intended to keep a degree of vendor-independence; the application server software can
run on a number of platforms that have included several Unix flavors, VMS, and Microsoft Windows NT, whilst
they have supported a variety of relational databases, including Oracle, Adabas, Informix, Microsoft
SQL Server. Front end software uses their
own proprietary protocols atop TCP/IP, and has run on various
platforms.

I used to do R/3 work, but am no
longer in this market. I no longer have terribly many useful
contacts, so if you're trying to staff a project, it probably isn't
worth contacting me.

This was once the "Heidelburg" project that sought to
create an R/3 Lite product.

They found the interesting (and not overly surprising) result
that smaller enterprises aren't necessarily that much less
sophisticated in their needs, and that stripping down R/3 wound up being pretty counter-productive.

This is not unlike the way that if you introduce various
flavors of investment vehicles like mutual funds, 401(k)s, IRAs, and
RRSPs, "personal finance" can require sophisticated
investment analysis tools that typically aren't needed by small
businesses.

They are instead working on ways of speeding the process of
configuring "full"R/3 systems.